HIGH-LEVEL THINKING AND LEARNING

Scientific-type thinking is not restricted to science. It is thinking which can cope with the relationship of theory to knowledge, and which provides the flexibility to revise what you 'know' in the face of fresh evidence. It is the root of the development of the skills needed to justify assertions. The thinking of more successful learners, even as children, has been found to be closer to that of experts, in that they make more reference to what they already know, rather than only to the information presented in given problems. This was seen in Canadian work by Shore et al (1992), who audio-taped and analysed young children's thinking-aloud comments. Although some researchers have concluded that the learning procedures of the gifted are more mature (Luthar et al, 1992), others find them to be different in style (Kanevsky, 1992). The value of knowledge, though, is not to be underestimated: it is vital to outstanding performance. Individuals who know a great deal about a specific area are seen to achieve at a higher level than those who do not (Elshout, 1995).

Emotions help or hamper learning at all levels. German research on gifted young children has found that fear can inhibit the development of curiosity, an important motivator in learning, thinking and creative endeavour (Lehwald, 1990). Boekaerts' (1991) overview of international research on the learning of gifted young children found that those who achieve most highly are not only very curious but have a hunger to learn, often along with a strong urge to control. Canadian research with young children has also found an extra quality of playfulness in the learning of highly able little children (Kanevsky, 1992). Investigating the current work of creative scientists in California and later that of living "classical" composers, although some of this work was retrospective, Simonton (1988; 1991; 1994) could demonstrate that above a certain high level, personal characteristics such as independence contributed more than intellect to reaching the highest levels because of the great demands of effort and time needed. Perhaps for that reason, a four-year follow-up investigation of talented American teenagers by Csikszentmihalyi et al (1993) found that in learning to tackle difficult tasks, the stronger the social support the more developed the youngster's skills, though schools were found to be much less effective in this than parents.

Self-regulation in learning

Self-regulation implies autonomous learning, being able to prepare and supervise one's own knowledge acquisition, to provide one's own feedback and to keep oneself concentrated and motivated. The equation is relatively straightforward: the more able an individual the more self-regulation will be needed for high achievement; the less able an individual the more teacher regulation is needed (Span, 1995). Indeed, applied research into how children learn science brought Adey (1991) to the conclusion that "the children's ability to think about the nature of their own thinking was a critical contributor to success". Conversely, teachers who are too directive can diminish their pupils' learning autonomy. Although 'spoon-feeding' can produce extremely high examination results, these are not always followed by equally impressive life successes (e.g. Kaufman, 1992; Arnold, 1995).

After 20 years' work in this area, Merenheimo (1991) in Finland concluded that "gifted pupils have an analytic strategy of perceiving information. The less gifted use either atomistic or serialistic strategies" (p.115). He believes this results from learned habits upheld by social experiences. Indeed, for the more average pupil, when teacher regulation is missing they often fall back on simple trial and error and rote-memorising, which can become a difficult habit to change. But Wertsch (1990) found that guided conversations with young children, helping them to understand the way knowledge and arguments could be practised, resulted in a measurable shift from teacher to self-regulation.

If, as the evidence indicates, the intellectually gifted think and learn differently from others, then it is important to teach them appropriately. Overviewing research on the thinking process of highly able children, Shore and Kanevsky (1993) put the teacher's problem succinctly: "If they merely think more quickly, then we need only teach more quickly. If they merely make fewer errors then we can shorten the practice."(p. 142). But this is not entirely the case, they say; adjustments have to be made in methods of learning and teaching to take account of thinking differences. There is now ample scientific evidence which shows that in order to learn by themselves the very able need some guidance from their teachers (Paris & Byrne, 1989). To be at their most effective, pupils can be helped to identify their own ways of learning which include strategies of planning, monitoring, evaluation, and choice of what to learn. They should also be helped to be aware of their attitudes to the area to be learned, such as curiosity, persistence and confidence.

When teachers help pupils to reflect on their own learning and thinking activities they are increasing their pupils' self-regulation. For a young child, it may be just the simple question: what have you learned today? which helps them to recognise what they are doing. Given that a fundamental goal of education is the transition of the control of learning from teachers to pupils, improving pupils' learning to learn (metacognition) should be a major outcome of the school experience, especially for the highly able.

To help teachers in schools, Nisbet (1990) distinguished these five methods:

 

Promoting self-regulation in learning Talking aloud. The teacher talks aloud while working through a problem so that the pupil can see the working. Cognitive apprenticeship. In this the teacher demonstrates the processes that experts use to handle complex tasks, guiding the pupil via experiences. Discussion. This must involve analysis of the processes of argument. Co-operative learning. The pupils explain their reasoning to each other. Co-operative teaching-learning interactions in the classroom are ideal for helping pupils take the leap to higher levels of understanding. Socratic questioning. In this, the teacher uses careful questioning to force pupils to explain their thought processes and explain their arguments. The questioning is not used to teach new knowledge, but to help pupils to know and use what they already have.

VERY ABLE GIRLS AND BOYS ARE DIFFERENT

The effects of being a boy or girl are different for the highly able than for those of more average ability (Freeman, 1996a). Many studies have shown gender to be the strongest single influence on high-level achievement, possibly owing in part to the 'glass ceiling', the invisible social barrier that prevents high-ability females from fulfilling their true career potential. German evidence has shown that intellectually gifted girls appear to be more like gifted boys than girls of average ability (Stapf, 1990). Emotionally, though, in America they have been found to be more depressed than equally able boys, often underestimating their abilities because of conflicts between success and 'femininity' (Luthar et al, 1992). Golombok and Fivush (1994) write that: "Careful statistical analyses across hundreds of studies have demonstrated that gender differences in ability in math and language are so small as to be virtually non-existent for all practical purposes" (p.177). They conclude that the measurable sex differences in aptitude are due to "a complex interaction between small biological differences and larger gender differences in socialisation experiences" (p.176).

There are currently changes in school achievement in Britain, showing that at school girls are achieving higher national examination grades than boys in all subjects. Although some other countries are moving in this direction, notably Australia, the situation in Britain appears to be unique. Investigating this, the Equal Opportunities Commission considered that better school inspection was partly the reason for the relative improvement in girls' achievements (Arnot et al, 1996). Women now make up 51% of university graduates (about the same in the USA and 61% in Russia), but in all countries men reach very much higher positions in their careers (e.g. of all British full professors and high court judges, women make up less than 5%).

An experimental intervention programme in Indiana gave girls 'directed enrichment', after which they were able to reach much higher levels in a variety of talent areas (Moon et al, 1994). Investigating mathematically precocious American youth in the USA, Benbow & Lubinski (1993) found that although gifted girls did significantly better on standardised tests in mental arithmetic and computation, they were much less successful with higher-level problem-solving, and much less frequently studied mathematics at a higher level. While recognising the effects of cultural influences, they reached the conclusion that there is a genetic mathematical bias in favour of boys, although the British figures refute this.

When girls start school in America they are identified in equal proportions to boys for gifted programmes, but as they get older there is a striking loss in the proportion of girls selected for gifted education (Winner, 1996). Although girls make up half the gifted population in kindergarten, this proportion shrinks to less than 30% at junior high school, and even less at high school, and so on. Asian American girls (usually meaning those from Pacific Rim countries), though, are an exception; they score more highly on Scholastic Aptitude Tests (American SATs are used to decide college entrance) than non-Asian girls. It has been suggested that they are born with a different brain structure (in Benbow, 1988), a conclusion which is clearly untrue for girls in other cultures.

Gender expectations

Taking a long-term look at giftedness in mathematics in the USA, Jacobs & Weisz (1994) found that parents held somewhat fixed and conventional gender expectations. This influenced the girls' self-esteem more than their actual performance, and inhibited their ambitions. In agreement, teachers questioned in 722 schools and 136 colleges in England and Wales reported that the main reason for low take-up in advanced mathematics and science was the perceived difficulty of the subject ­ more true for girls than boys ­ and for girls there was the added lack of women teachers as role models in these subjects (Sharp et al, 1996). According to Smithers (1997), physics A level is the only area in which girls' grades may be beginning to decline again because the earlier exam is a more general measure of "scientific literacy", whereas A levels are a high-level selection device for university which picks out different ambitions and character traits. However, the published examination results appear to contradict him.

An international review of research on gender differences in the highly able in mathematics and natural sciences failed to find any reliable evidence that girls are inherently less able than boys in these subjects (Heller 1996). So, because they have similar abilities, girls and boys can act as experimental controls for each other to gauge the power of social effects, probably best seen in career outcomes. Heller pointed out, for example, that even on present tests of spatial abilities at which boys do better, we could expect only twice as many male engineering graduates as females, whereas there are 30 times as many. This effect was found to be more pronounced among the gifted, girls being more influenced by social pressures than boys, e.g. by the 'unfemininity' of subjects such as physics, as well as having much less practice and fewer role-models. Most importantly, the often-noted 'learned helplessness' of girls (a feeling that events and outcomes are beyond their control) was considered to be the result of 'wrong' attributions, so that girls often think their success is due to luck rather than their own ability. Thus, Heller states, believing that they are not good at maths, but simply lucky to have done well that time, girls adjust their behaviour to fit their belief (attribution) and 'confirm' it by doing less well as time goes by.

Children's feelings about what they are able to achieve start early. Young children do not understand ability in the same way as they will begin to at about age 11, in that they start by expecting effort to lead to results (Heyman & Dweck, 1996). They learn as they grow up, maybe falsely, that they are not able to achieve high-level results, and so stop trying. Differences in motivation to learn in young children may also be more to do with their ideas of goodness and badness than with specific ideas of intellectual competence. Increasing motivation to learn, then, implies taking the blame away from personal deficiencies, such as perceived low ability over which children have no control, and putting it on lack of effort or appropriate learning strategies over which they do have control. Bennett et al (1984) emphasised the importance of teacher feedback which enables a pupil to learn from mistakes, rather than, as sometimes happens, giving different feedback to those for whom teachers have high or low aspirations.

Mentoring and counselling to improve self-esteem have been found to be effective in promoting a more realistic acceptance by gifted girls of their abilities (Arnold & Subotnik, 1994; Freeman 1998). German researchers (Heller, 1996) designed a focused and "largely successful" experimental programme of 're-attribution' to help girls recognise and accept their real talents. For this they used personal experience and positive feedback with 19 boys and 23 girls in six one-hour sessions, then compared their achievements with a group who had only attended the school course. Results indicated that re-attribution should be started soon after the bases of the learning had been laid down; another opportune time was at the move from primary to secondary school -- prevention, they say, being better than cure. The team stressed that for teachers to really help underachieving gifted girls (or perhaps British boys) they should have special training to use these re-attribution techniques in the classroom situation. One especially effective technique they used was verbal encouragement to increase motivation, e.g. as follows:

 

Increasing self-esteem for higher achievement Successful performance Emphasise the student's abilities or talents ­ "The topic suits you". Give consistency information ­ "You have done that right again". Give consensus information, and thus stress success ­ "Most people have difficulties with this problem, but you did it". Unsuccessful performance Attribute it to insufficient effort ­ "If you read that again it will soon become clear to you". Take the edge off failure by providing consensus information ­ "Most students have difficulties with that". Give distinctiveness information ­ "The other topic suits you better, doesn't it".

THE VERY ABLE ARE EMOTIONALLY NORMAL

There is no reliable scientific evidence to show that exceptionally high ability per se is associated with emotional problems, or that an inadequate education results in delinquent or disturbed behaviour. On the contrary, an American meta-analysis pointed to low intelligence and attention problems as being associated with delinquency (Maguin & Loeber, 1996). Investigators who describe the gifted as having emotional problems have usually taken their data from clinical settings and case-studies, where the population is self-selecting and no comparisons are ever made with other equally able children (e.g. Silverman, 1993; Gross, 1993) or voluntary gifted children's associations (see above).

However, an American researcher has written: "Like other children, the problems gifted students bring to counselling usually arise from family relationships." (Robinson, 1996, p. 130). When types and degrees of behavioural problems were compared for gifted and non- gifted elementary school children in the USA, there were no significant differences (Cornell et al, 1994); similarly, using self-reporting techniques comparing adolescent gifted and non-gifted children, "the gifted students show better adjustment" (Nail & Evans, 1997, p18). It could even be said that the gifted have to be emotionally stronger to achieve so exceptionally.

In fact, some studies of the gifted have indeed found them to be emotionally stronger than others, with higher productivity, higher motivation and drive, and lower levels of anxiety. An Israeli study (Kener, 1993, in Zorman, 1996) found that gifted junior-school boys and girls showed significantly higher self-esteem when compared with those of average ability from similar backgrounds. In Italy, a sample of 300 high school pupils were given tests and open-ended questionnaires, although the follow-up only managed to trace 63 of them 8 years later (Boncori, 1996). There were three sub-samples, 'highly gifted' (the top 10% of the general population), 'less gifted' and 'average'. The 'highly gifted' not only had far greater academic success than the other two groups, but also right through university enjoyed better social integration, wider interests, less materialism and more satisfaction.

Specific pressures

High-achieving learners and labelled 'gifted' children are sometimes susceptible to extra pressure from teachers and parents to be continually successful in examinations, possibly at the expense of more challenging intellectual, artistic and emotionally satisfying activities (Freeman, 1997). What is more, no individual can perform at a high level all the time, not least because these children's abilities may develop at different and extreme rates, which can bring difficulties of co-ordination (Terassier, 1985: Silverman, 1993). For example, children who are advanced in verbal ability are not, on average, more advanced in motor skills (Robinson, 1996). Additionally, the highly able may suffer from false stereotyping along a spectrum which ranges from expecting them to be emotionally handicapped to expecting them to be perfect in every respect. Fear of failure and feelings of failure and of disappointing others' expectations are likely to develop, with possibly negative emotional consequences
for life.

Social life: The particular pressures which the very able may experience usually stem from others' reactions and expectations of them. For example, although the gifted may be expected to be too clever to enjoy normal relationships with ordinary people, in most findings, higher IQ youngsters have better all-round social relationships (e.g. van Leishout, 1995; Boncori, 1996). There is some evidence, though, that under special stresses, such as the certain expectation of top-level examination results, highly-achieving adolescents can become depressed and even prone to suicide (Farrell, 1989; Yewchuk & Jobagy, 1991). Other researchers have pointed to the tendency to perfectionism in the gifted (Stedtnitz, 1995; Robinson, 1996). But we cannot be sure about the causes, or whether this kind of obsessionality is found more among the gifted than other children. Certainly the gifted can suffer from adults who mistake the abilities for the child.

A problem which each talented pupil in a mixed-ability class has to solve is socialising with less able classmates while being intellectually at a higher level, and thus different from them. This calls for exceptional maturity and social skills, since a high level of individuality needs to be shown at some times and conformity to social norms at others. American work by Webb (1993), though, has found that gifted children can sometimes make social problems for themselves: "They often repeatedly and intensely attempt to organise people and things, and in their search for consistency, emphasise 'rules' which they attempt to apply to others. Often they invent games and then try to organise their playmates. Almost regardless of the settings, tensions are likely to arise between the gifted children and their peers." (p.529).

Reports from a 15-year Chinese study of 115 extremely high-IQ children (Zha, 1995b) showed the strong influence of family provision on both achievement and emotional development. The children were first identified by parents (two boys to every girl) and then validated as gifted by a psychologist. Every year parents were given a questionnaire and interviewed several times. The parents-to-be had taken their future responsibilities very seriously by studying parenthood. As the toddlers were learning to speak the parents often taught them to read, and some children even mastered writing at the same time. By the age of three many children could recognise 2,000 Chinese characters, and at four many could not only read well, but also write compositions and poems. However, these 'hot-housed' children were found to be lacking in easy social relationships, and the parents had to be given some more lessons in how to help their children to have some social life.

Popularity: Researching the emotional adjustment of the very able via one-to-one interviews in Germany, Rost and Czeschlik (1994) compared the responses of 50 high-IQ with 50 average-IQ primary school children, and concluded that the former were the better adjusted. Later, working with mixed-ability primary school children, they found that those with high-IQs were the most popular (Czeschlik & Rost, 1995). Brody and Benbow (1986) used American Scholastic Achievement Tests to select mathematically and verbally high-scoring 13-year-olds. Questionnaires about their lives and feelings were mailed to them (response 78%). Although a less able comparison group were only included two years later, it was concluded that the high scorers saw themselves as less popular although more in control of their lives; but as there was no actual contact with the youngsters it was difficult to tell why this was so.

The effect of being labelled: Possibly there is cultural difference in the way children react to being labelled as highly able or gifted. In Croatia, Kolesaric and Koren (1992) experimented with the effects of publicly labelling the top 10% of 11-year-old pupils from 14 schools as gifted, based on four tests of cognitive ability. They were then compared with non-labelled mixed-ability control children, none of the sample being in a special programme. The total sample of 1,215 pupils was examined before and after two years, as were their parents and 300 of their teachers. The selected pupils felt much more frequently than their teachers and parents that the label 'gifted' carried some danger to their developing personalities, and also disagreed with the adults' preference for separate schools. Yet for American youngsters who were in pre-college gifted programmes, their self-esteem was found to be highest when attention was focused on their gifts but lowest when focused on personal relationships (Colangelo & Assouline, 1995). In Israel, too, most of the children in a national survey of special classes for the gifted felt that the label increased their self-confidence (Shahal, 1995).

Research, unique in its in-depth approach, was carried out in Britain over 14 years (Freeman, 1991). This was a comparative follow-up study of carefully matched triads of children, initially aged 5-14. The target group of 70 children, identified by their parents as gifted, were compared with a second group of 70 who were unlabelled - but of equal measured ability - and with a third group of 70 randomly selected children. All were interviewed and tested in their homes across the country, as well as their families and teachers in the schools being questioned. The children were also given a wide variety of tests and their environmental circumstances rated. It was found that those who had been labelled 'gifted' (whose parents had joined the National Association for Gifted Children) had significantly (p< 1.0) more behaviour problems than those of equal ability who were not so labelled. However, the possession of an IQ within the top 2% was not found to be related to emotional problems or social relationships, which were instead associated with other difficulties in the child's life. In fact, the brightest appeared to be exceptionally empathetic. The most practical finding was that at all levels of intelligence (70 IQ-170 IQ) the children's school achievements were directly related to accessibility of facilities for learning, as well as to parental involvement and example.

Ten years later, using the same home interview methods, the labelled young people had often remained the least happy (as measured by rating scales), for which their gifts were sometimes blamed. Labelling appeared to have had the effect of putting pressure on children to live up to it in high achievements, notably in the case of those who had been wrongly labelled and could not fulfil their parents' ambitions. As a result of having highly able children, parents can themselves have emotional problems, whether through feeling inadequate or trying to gain social advantage from living vicariously through their child. Whatever problems already exist in the family, these can be intensified when there is an unusual child present (Freeman, 1993).

Too many talents: Although some youngsters have specific gifts and thus can see their career route quite clearly, there are others who seem to have the potential to do almost anything to a high level. The problems of being able to do a great number of things extremely well arise when vocational choices have to be made, and skilled attention is needed to help young people make the best decisions in that situation (Milgram, 1991; Deslisle, 1992).

For the multi-talented, vocational problems can be more severe than for other pupils. For example, by the age of 17, one highly talented boy in the Freeman sample had acquired degree-level music qualifications, but he also had four A grades in A-level sciences. His dilemma was whether to study music or medicine. After great anguish, he decided to take the science option but found little in common with his fellow medical students. As a hospital doctor he grieved so much for his music that he eventually gave up medicine. Having lost his years of music practice, however, he became a musicians' agent rather than a performer. Specialised vocational guidance for these children should start early, possibly even in primary school. It is distressing and wasteful for all-round highly able young people to change their post-school course, as well as being an extravagant form of vocational guidance.